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The storm had found them the way storms always did, at the worst possible moment and with enthusiasm. Rain hammered the mountainside like thrown gravel, bouncing white off the rocks and turning every crevice into a rushing black stream. Wind tore at Felix’s cloak, plastering it cold and heavy against his back, and got into Gotrek’s beard with what seemed like personal malice, unraveling the careful braids and whipping the red strands into a streaming banner of defiance.
“This is not my fault,” Felix said, raising his voice over the thunder.
Gotrek snorted. “Everything’s your fault. That’s the advantage of travelling with a manling.”
“I merely suggested a shortcut.”
“You suggested a vertical goat path in a thunderstorm.”
Felix slid slightly, boots scraping on wet stone. “In my defense, I can see in the dark now. The rain is unfortunate.”
A rumble rolled through the ground beneath them, not thunder this time. The mountain shifted, stones popping loose like rotten teeth.
Felix opened his mouth to say something clever.
The ground gave up entirely.
They fell.
It was not a graceful fall. There was sliding, swearing a brief but memorable collision with a boulder, and then the world dropped away as the slope collapsed into a cascade of mud and stone.
Felix hit hard, rolled, clawed for purchase out of reflex, and finally slammed shoulder‑first into rock. Pain flared distantly, dulled, but he was already moving, already reaching.
“Gotrek!”
“I’m here,” came the reply, furious and indestructible. “And when I get hold of this mountain, I’m going to kill it.”
They lay there for a moment, rain pouring down the shattered slope above them, before Felix noticed the black mouth of a cave yawning just below.
“Shelter,” he said. “Before the mountain finishes its argument.”
Gotrek grunted in agreement.
The cave smelled of damp stone, old bones, and something far worse.
Felix noticed it immediately.
“Gotrek,” he said quietly.
“Aye.”
“That smell…”
The troll lunged.
It came out of the darkness like a landslide with teeth, massive and slick‑skinned, roaring as if offended by their existence. Felix moved without thinking, shoving Gotrek aside as claw marks appeared in stone where his head had been.
“Oi!” Gotrek bellowed. “That one is mine!”
The fight was fast, brutal, and unpleasant. Felix danced in close, blade flashing, every spray of blood a screaming temptation. He snarled at himself, forced his grip steady, cut tendons instead of veins.
Gotrek hacked, roared, laughed a terrible, joyous sound until the troll finally toppled with a wet, echoing crash.
Silence followed. Then dripping.
Felix exhaled slowly. “The blood stinks,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
Gotrek glanced at him, said nothing, and kicked the corpse.
“Come on,” the dwarf said. “Let’s introduce it to gravity.”
They heaved together, shoving the troll’s bulk back toward the slope. With a final effort and a satisfying crunch, it vanished over the edge, tumbling down the mountain.
Felix watched it go. “That,” he said, “was therapeutic.”
They built a fire deeper in the cave. Felix used his claws as tools, snapping wood cleanly, then sat back, moisture steaming off his clothes.
Gotrek stripped off his soaked gear, scowling at the fire. His beard hung loose now, braids undone by rain and violence, red strands tangled and wild.
Felix noticed. “That won’t do,” Felix said.
Gotrek glared. “What.”
“Your beard.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s an insult to every dwarf ancestor.”
Gotrek crossed his arms. “Don’t start.”
Felix smiled , small, sharp, irreverent. “You’ll catch your axe in it.”
“I have never…”
“You already nearly did. I watched.”
Gotrek opened his mouth, closed it, and growled. “No.”
Felix scooted closer anyway. “Hold still.”
“Manling.”
“You’re injured.”
“I’m always injured.”
“Exactly. Sit.”
Gotrek bristled, scowled, muttered several things that would have blistered paint, and then, finally, relented with the air of a dwarf accepting an unavoidable geological event.
“Fine,” he snapped. “But you pull, I break your fingers.”
Felix’s hands were careful. Reverent, even. He separated the damp strands, fingers gentle despite their strength, working the braids back into place.
Gotrek went very still.
Felix frowned slightly. “No sarcastic remarks?”
“Do not read into that.”
“I always read into that.”
“Don’t.”
Felix smiled to himself and continued. He didn’t know, couldn’t know what the gesture meant. Only that it felt… right. Intimate in a way that made his chest ache.
When he finished, he tied off the braid neatly and leaned back.
“There,” he said. “Presentable.”
Gotrek touched his beard once, slowly. His voice was rougher when he spoke.
“Don’t do that again.”
Felix raised a brow. “Or?”
Gotrek looked at him, one eye burning like coals.
“Or you’ll have to explain it.”
Felix swallowed, then laughed softly, self‑mocking, deflective.
“Well,” he said, “that would require me to understand myself. And we both know how poorly that usually goes.”
Gotrek snorted despite himself.
The fire crackled. Outside, the storm raged on.
By the time the storm finally broke, the mountain looked as if it had tried very hard to kill them.
They descended cautiously, boots sinking into wet gravel, Felix moving a half‑step closer without quite meaning to. He told himself it was habit.
They had gone perhaps a mile when Felix caught the sound of voices, deep, rolling, unmistakably dwarven.
“Company,” Felix murmured.
Gotrek grunted. “About time.”
The group emerged from a bend in the road: four longbeards with mining packs and heavy tools, a young dwarf barely past his beard‑binding, and a broad‑shouldered merchant whose rings and oiled beard spoke of coin earned the hard way.
They froze when they saw Gotrek.
Then relief washed over them like sunlight.
“A Slayer!” one of the longbeards exclaimed. “Grimnir be praised. We thought this road cursed.”
Gotrek planted his axe and scowled. “Still is.”
That gave them pause.
Felix inclined his head politely. “We’re travelling the same way. Safety in numbers?”
The merchant nodded immediately. “You’re welcome to join us. Any road with a Slayer on it is a road less likely to end badly.”
Felix bit back a smile.
An hour later, the dwarves were less certain.
Gotrek walked ahead, muttering to himself, occasionally kicking stones into ravines as if daring them to fight back. Felix followed at his shoulder, cloak pulled tight, hood shadowing his face.
“So,” Felix said mildly, “how’s your mood?”
“Unimproved.”
“At least you are consistent.”
One of the longbeards leaned toward the merchant and murmured, “Strangest slayer I’ve ever seen.”
Another longbeard frowned openly at Gotrek’s beard. “That braid’s… odd.”
Felix’s stomach sank.
“Looks wrong,” the dwarf continued. “Not a dwarf‑work.”
Gotrek growled. “It’s fine.”
Felix cleared his throat. “Storm damage.”
The longbeards exchanged looks. The young dwarf, barely able to contain himself, stared openly.
“Actually,” he blurted, “that knot’s a courting bind.”
Silence.
Felix stopped walking.
“…a what,” he said carefully.
The young dwarf flushed. “It’s, well.. when a dwarf lets someone braid their beard like that, it’s a bond‑mark. Usually only…”
Gotrek turned very slowly.
Felix felt the color drain from his face.
“Oh,” Felix said faintly. “That’s unfortunate.”
The merchant coughed violently into his beard.
One of the longbeards muttered, “By Valaya…”
Felix recovered first. Shame snapped neatly into sarcasm.
“Well,” he said, forcing a smile, “that explains the sudden urge to write poetry.”
Gotrek exploded.
“Manling!”
“You didn’t tell me it was romantic,” Felix hissed back. “You said don’t pull.”
“That should have been enough!”
Felix threw up his hands. “I thought it was hygiene!”
The longbeards were now openly staring. The young dwarf looked like he might faint.
Gotrek grabbed Felix by the collar and hauled him closer, voice a furious whisper. “You did what dwarves only let their…”
“I DIDN’T KNOW,” Felix snapped, then froze.
The words hung there, heavy as fate.
Gotrek released him abruptly and stalked ahead, beard blazing like a warning sign.
Felix stood there for a heartbeat, mortified, then followed.
Behind them, the merchant said quietly, “Well. That explains a lot.”
They walked the rest of the way in strained silence.
Felix kept his hood low, pretending very hard to be human, to breathe, to not notice the way Gotrek’s presence anchored him like gravity.
At the town gates, the dwarves finally broke away, bowing respectfully to Gotrek and giving Felix very curious looks.
The young dwarf lingered. “Er, sorry.”
Felix sighed. “No. Thank you. I prefer my humiliations educational.”
When they were alone again, Gotrek spoke without looking at him.
“You didn’t mean it.”
Felix swallowed. “No.”
“…Good.”
A pause.
Then, softer: “You did it well.”
Felix blinked.
“I… what?”
Gotrek cleared his throat violently. “The braid. It’ll hold.”
Felix smiled despite himself.
“Well,” he said, “if I’ve accidentally proposed, I suppose I should at least be competent.”
Gotrek snorted and moved beyond the gates.